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As someone who writes a lot about great inventors and forgotten geeks I get endless questions asking to compare Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla.

Recently I have been asked to answer questions comparing Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein to Nikola Tesla.

There is an obsession with "who was smarter" questions, and comparing one successful person to another. The problem with these compare person x to person y questions is that they often ask to compare two totally different people. Do we really need to keep score?

This material in this blog post has been rolling around in my brain for a few weeks. With a few additional questions added to my list, the time has come to address fascination with comparing people.

There is a fascination with comparing people with Einstein. As I amused myself reading some recent questions, I wondered how silly can it get, will people start comparing Albert Einstein to Wayne Gretzky or Babe Ruth?

To those of you who only vaguely know their names, let us take a brief look at the careers of sports legends Wayne Gretzky and Babe Ruth.

Wayne Gretzky played in the National Hockey League from 1978 through 1999. During his career as a hockey player he dominated the sport, he was the NHL's season points leader 10 times and named the NHL most valuable player award nine times.

George Herman "Babe" Ruth was an professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons from 1914 through 1935. Ruth lead the league in home runs in twelve seasons. At the time of his retirement Babe Ruth held dozens of MLB records.

In sports there are various statistics kept to evaluate the performance of a player. Statistically Babe Ruth was the greatest Major League Baseball player of his generation. Statistically Wayne Gretzky was the greatest National Hockey League player of his generation.

I try to live by a simple motto: when evaluating your outcomes, look for reasons to succeed, not excuses to fail.

As part of my inspiration to write this blog post, I just updated one of my websites by restoring a story on Thomas Edison and the mythical quote on his 10,000 failures to invent the electric light bulb. You'll find the link to that story at the end of this blog post, and you can read about Thomas Edison as one of the best examples of a successful state of mind

I have stayed away from social media more than usual lately because of all the negativity. The news have been dominated in recent days about people wishing for the failure of the incoming presidential administration. The world seems to be super charged with negativity. All the "not my president" memes and cartoons are getting way out of hand.

For all the years I have been eligible to vote, going back to the days of Gerald Ford, more often than not, the person who I thought was the best candidate to become president never made it out of the primaries. Along the way I have voted for many losing candidates in the general election. For all my discomfort and frustration, I have always accepted the results of the election, and supported the president in respect for our country. When a candidate I dislike has won, I have asked myself, and others, is there something I could have done to change things?

In the world of the Tao of Questy, the goal is not to take sides in an "us versus them" argument, but to stretch your brain to see things in a different perspective. To all the sore losers in politics, stop and think about this, when you lose, don’t lose the lesson. On social media I don't see many people asking the question, "Is there something I could have done to change things?" But I do see a lot of people looking for ways for the new president to fail, hoping he will fail. So much for good sportsmanship.

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The Tao of Questy is about love and laughter and being human. It's about sharing ideas and being a little bit crazy in order to stay sane.